On July 31, 2023, a supposed celebrity news YouTube channel named Just In (@JustInCeleb) published a video about the death of Irish singer-songwriter Sinead O'Connor, titled, "Sinéad O'Connor SENT MAJOR Warning About Hollywood JUST Before Death." O'Connor died at the age of 56 on July 26, 2023.
However, despite its title, the video, which may have featured narration with a voice generated by artificial intelligence, never presents evidence that O'Connor had issued a warning about Hollywood in the days before her death. We found no data that would lend any credibility to this rumor.
We previously reported about a similar video that falsely claimed stand-up comedian Dave Chappelle had "exposed" entertainment icon Oprah Winfrey for being "a handler for Hollywood elites." The video was published by the This Happened YouTube channel, which is apparently owned by a publishing company named Crealon. It's unclear if This Happened was associated with Just In, but it appeared to be a possibility.
In regard to the video about O'Connor, its thumbnail showed a strange picture of Winfrey, several people in Ku Klux Klan outfits near a large fire, and an altered image of O'Connor that claimed she had said, "Listen before it's too late." Not only did we find no record of O'Connor saying these words, but the video itself never mentions anything negative about Winfrey, nor does it feature references to the Ku Klux Klan.
This was the misleading thumbnail image for the video.
The video in question simply presents clips, moments, and messages from O'Connor's life. It also shows the following disclaimer in its description:
Disclaimer: Content might be gossip, rumors, exaggerated or indirectly besides the truth. Viewer advised to do own research before forming their opinion. Content might be opinionated.
On Facebook, we found a page for the Just In brand that had the same logo and handle seen on YouTube. According to the "page transparency" information associated with the Facebook page, it was being managed from Indonesia.
While the video doesn't deliver on the claim in its title, it does feature other noteworthy facts and moments from O'Connor's life. For example, the video highlights her bipolar disorder diagnosis and also the time when she lost her teenage son, Shane, to suicide, in 2022.
The video also mentions the time in 1992 when O'Connor tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II while appearing on NBC's "Saturday Night Live."
According to the Los Angeles Times, the photograph had a deeper meaning than some viewers may have realized at the time:
That action was probably O'Connor's most infamous and misunderstood move throughout her decades-long career — in her 2021 memoir, "Rememberings," she detailed that the photo she tore up in protest was the only framed photo her mother had hung in their home. She took it down the day her mother died and vowed she would destroy it when the right moment arose. To O'Connor, the photo symbolized the Catholic Church's cover-up of child sexual abuse, and the physical and sexual abuse she'd endured for years at the hands of her mother.
Among other moments from O'Connor's life, the video features the fact that, in 2013, she wrote an open letter intended for fellow singer-songwriter Miley Cyrus to warn her about being exploited by the music industry.
As Reuters reported, Cyrus responded by mocking O'Connor for her mental health problems in a reference to actor Amanda Bynes. At the time, Bynes was dealing with issues of her own.
Before Amanda Bynes.... There was.... pic.twitter.com/6JZPVnunPc
— Miley Cyrus (@MileyCyrus) October 3, 2013
On the same day that Cyrus posted this tweet, she also tweeted a picture of O'Connor tearing up the picture of the pope on "SNL" from 1992, just hours after earlier tweeting, "Sinead. I don't have time to write you an open letter cause Im hosting & performing on SNL this week."
#SNL pic.twitter.com/6Cq9pewEO0
— Miley Cyrus (@MileyCyrus) October 3, 2013
This story will be updated if more information comes to light.
